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Apple Unveils New 13-Inch and 15-Inch MacBook Pros With Retina 'Touch Bar'

Apple are just caught up in their own hubris. Making it all thinner and lighter at the expense of functionality. "Look at the touch bar with emojis". Give me a break. Catering for the millennials.

The loss of magsafe is a poor move. The number of times i've bumped the cable and any other design would've pulled it off the table. Now it looks like that's gonna be the norm.

My 2012 MBP has 2.5TB of storage and has a ton of usable ports without compromising on adapters. Guess I'll be sticking with this for a while longer. Or visit the refurbished store for a high-end Retina.
 
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Well... I ordered mine, clearing $4,000. My Mid 2012 MacBook Pro has served me well.

Base prices felt reasonable to me. Maybe I'm still stuck to some extent in times past where a price like this for a professional Mac was par for the course. Although I wouldn't justify the cost for a recreational computer. Now need to look into a 4/5K display suitable for this machine and whatever I need to sell my Mac Pro and use only this new computer.

The touch bar looks much, much more interesting than I expected, and I really appreciated the Photoshop demonstration. I can't picture myself using it for something like 'speeding up' my typing (hard to imagine that being possible with a visual glance and reach up where the function keys were) but I believe it has incredible potential to streamline certain contextual tasks in professional apps like Photoshop (if not the OS, say nothing for customization). Perhaps some people here are underestimating the potential of a screen like this—it can be anything a developer conceives of. I certainly don't want to be touching my screen. Even more inconvenient, and the fingerprints...

Bummed about the 16 GB RAM limit on order. Because I'm in graphics/web design the 16 GBs should be adequate for me, but I would have bumped up to 32. Heck, I'm using 16 GB in my current four-year-old MacBook Pro, though an aftermarket upgrade. I've got some buddies in video who are sure to be extremely disappointed about that limitation. Curious to see if it's upgradeable.

I don't mind the 4x Thunderbolt 3 ports. Actually, I appreciate it, and see it as a great platform for future compatibility. On checkout I included a compatible cable for connecting my iPhone or iPad and also two USB adapters (will only use one regularly—the other will go in a drawer for when something obnoxious inevitably comes up). I'm going to miss MagSafe—it's saved my behind before.
 
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Pretty blown away by the negativity in here. We got a top of the line computer, granted for a premium price but what do you expect?

- USBC only is annoying. I'll get over it. I realize it will affect some people a bit more because they need SD and things.
- 16 gb of ram is more than enough for me. I do music writing so tons of VSTs that take a lot of ram but not 16 gigs.
- Processor speeds are maxed out. Is there anything faster? Kaby Lake is not out yet especially for the high end.
- Hard drives are blazing fast
- while it is DDR 3 its substantially faster than the last model. Is DDR4 that big a jump?

EDIT - and I do think the touch bar is dumb. really really don't care for it. I prefer muscle memory.
 
Kiro said:
Actually I do and I won't use a touch monitor. Instead I am using a surface pro 3 at work. No gorilla arm. So, if you are going to get a gorilla arm there, you will get one with the touchbar on top of your keyboard next to your screen. Try it for yourself with your function keys. You cannot rest your palm on the normal keys...

So, apple could just have made the screen a touch screen instead of adding the limited touch bar.
Click to expand...

Have you seen MS's new desktop Surface Studio? You pull the monitor towards you, and work at your desired angle. No gorilla arms.
 
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Well, I've been thinking of getting a new laptop for over a year now. Kind of agnostic on whether it is a Mac or PC. The work I do can easily be done on either... but lacking an "Esc" key is a bummer for someone like me who does frequently use the vim editor. I was waiting for both the Microsoft and Apple presentations this week to see what is out there. I really do want a 15" display, but Microsoft isn't offering a surface book in that size. On the other hand, I find these offerings from Apple (and the prices) to be crazy. I know Apple hardware excels in quality and longevity -- I still have a late 2008 MacBook that still works fine, other than being a little slow. In order to get that kind of longevity out of my next laptop purchase, I'd assume I would want more than 16GB of RAM. The biggest thing though: the price premium on this latest offering from Apple is appalling to me. I hope Dell refreshes their XPS15 line before the new year, because it looks like that is probably where I'm headed.
 
Ok Apple, the MagSafe is gone, SD card reader is gone, just USB-C. Ok Apple, you have added the TouchBar, better screen, bigger trackpad. Fine, not revolution, just evolution.

BUT:

The price? Insane. I think they just crossed the borders of a premium price. This is simply overpriced. I like macOS, I'm a webdeveloper / photography student, so I'm ready to pay a premium price for a something I use every day for my work, but this is just too much for a computer.
 
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franky303 said:
how many cycles? - i'm on mid-2012 cMBP, and it's still got 95% with the first battery (~450 cycles).
Click to expand...

6+ year old mid 2010 15" MBP (from the golden era, cost only 1799$ back in the day) with 1678 cycles, 59% of the battery capacity left. Still hanging in there thanks to Superdrive-SSD replacement.

I'll stick with it for now despite waiting for this announcement this past year or so. I have "zero" Thunderbolt 3 devices, it is a joke not being able to charge your brand new iPhone 7 from a brand new Macbook Pro. Even my loyal fanboy faith in Apple has diminished. If it wasn't for OS X I would have skipped to a Windows machine now. They will be messing up OS X too soon enough unfortunately. In fact they have been on that slowly but surely.

Let's see how long they keep afloat, until some other disrupter arrives I guess.
 
mdlooker said:
Can someone please explain why take away the MagSafe???
Click to expand...

Because:

1. It is one less component Apple has to bother with to shoehorn into the machine

2. Not having to do #1 saves Apple money in labor, hardware, and engineering costs

3. Their philosophy of "simplicity" is (arguably) being taken to extremes

4. Form over function is a staple of Apple's internal design culture

*Bonus: Apple is not interested in making the best products anymore. They want the most profitable.
 
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talkybear said:
I think the worst thing about the touch bar is that: you'll need to remember (for every individual software) what functions will appear on the touch bar and where, and what functions still need keyboard/mouse/etc. You'll get confused very fast.

Then the second worst thing is you'll have to switch back and forth constantly between the tiny bar and the screen. Talk about your eyesight...
Click to expand...
Actually, having to change focus is a GOOD THING for your eyes. "Slow Focus" is a problem with people who stare at the plane of a display without altering their focal-point for long periods of time. That's why visual experts recommend that you take breaks to look around the room every 15 minutes or so, so your eyes stay "in shape".
 
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Everyone hating on the Touch Bar... I don't get it. Apple has intentionally stayed away from bringing touchscreen capability to the Mac, and after seeing the demos with full-screen editing using the Touch Bar I can perfectly see why. Most professionals who aren't actually drawing onto their screen surfaces (a la Apple Pencil) really don't want their screens all smudged up or their controls/fingers having to get in the way of their work. Such diminishes the quality of the display and takes up valuable real estate, especially when we're talking about mobile devices with limited screen size. There's something extremely beautiful and focusing about having just the art fill the entire screen and keeping all the controls somewhere else. This is my favorite part about having a dual-monitor setup (i.e. being able to put tool palettes, finder windows, references, etc. on another screen).

With the Touch Bar, I think we can see a picture of the future, where there is one screen that is a primary display and another dedicated to control/interaction. The trackpad has acted like this for a while as a gradual evolution of a traditional mouse (along with the keyboard), but even with multi-touch it is still lacking that essential interactivity of an actual touchscreen. Nintendo was ahead of the game with their DS; I believe they understood this concept long ago. Having now all four separate input devices in a single laptop-- one for typing language, one for precision tracking/pointing/navigating, one for contextual interaction, and one for voice control-- will be a very interesting development indeed.
 
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Xian Zhu Xuande said:
Well... I ordered mine, clearing $4,000. My Mid 2012 MacBook Pro has served me well.

Base prices felt reasonable to me. Maybe I'm still stuck to some extent in times past where a price like this for a professional Mac was par for the course. Although I wouldn't justify the cost for a recreational computer. Now need to look into a 4/5K display suitable for this machine and whatever I need to sell my Mac Pro and use only this new computer.

The touch bar looks much, much more interesting than I expected, and I really appreciated the Photoshop demonstration. I can't picture myself using it for something like 'speeding up' my typing (hard to imagine that being possible with a visual glance and reach up where the function keys were) but I believe it has incredible potential to streamline certain contextual tasks in professional apps like Photoshop (if not the OS, say nothing for customization). Perhaps some people here are underestimating the potential of a screen like this—it can be anything a developer conceives of. I certainly don't want to be touching my screen. Even more inconvenient, and the fingerprints...

Bummed about the 16 GB RAM limit on order. Because I'm in graphics/web design the 16 GBs should be adequate for me, but I would have bumped up to 32. Heck, I'm using 16 GB in my current four-year-old MacBook Pro, though an aftermarket upgrade. I've got some buddies in video who are sure to be extremely disappointed about that limitation. Curious to see if it's upgradeable.

I don't mind the 4x Thunderbolt 3 ports. Actually, I appreciate it, and see it as a great platform for future compatibility. On checkout I included a compatible cable for connecting my iPhone or iPad and also two USB adapters (will only use one regularly—the other will go in a drawer for when something obnoxious inevitably comes up). I'm going to miss MagSafe—it's saved my behind before.
Click to expand...

Same here. I had a mid-2012 15"MBP.

Just ordered the new 15"MBP w/ Radeon Pro 460 and 512GB. I hope that this one lasts me up to the year 2021.
 
I wasted an hour and a half watching the introduction of Twitter to my tv (no thanks), a video aggregator app which only confuses things further on an apple tv which is going functionally backwards (that stupid remote...) and a Macbook Pro with an additional touchbar when I have gestures on my trackpad and shortcut keys. I mean...FCP has awesome, accurate, intuitive hover scrubbing. Why the f would I want to stop touching the trackpad to reach over to manually scrub? Sideways scrolling through all those emojis when opening a menu is quicker. Half the stuff they demo'd is already on the toolbar at the top and your hands are on the trackpad already. All the demonstrators were pecking away awkwardly. It's just a dumb, pointless idea...which is why they spent an hour trying to sell it.

Adding useless stuff nobody asked for and nobody needs. Taking away the good stuff (Aperture, et al). Dongles, adapters, incompatibilities everywhere. Seems to be a trait now at Apple. And don't get me started on the Beats acquisition.

After 15 years using exclusively Apple products I'm actually happy to be giving my money to MS going forward. They are not perfect but at least they're trying.

TC needs to go. What an idiot.

Edit: And I noticed all the whooping and cheering and applause starting was from the execs in the front row.
 
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When my Mac Mini stops providing enough "juice" for lightroom and such I hope they have gotten a bit more sane. Hopefully the mini gets a bump down the road, for now its more than fast enough.
 
mandoman said:
If I learned anything over the years, it's to skip first iteration of newly overhauled/designed macbook pro. I will wait for next iteration of this model.
Click to expand...
Arguably, you should actually buy this iteration as soon as you can. The number of ports is only going to decrease from here on out! Get them while you still can!
 
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cube said:
Lenovo P50 (quad-core Xeon, 4K, Quadro, upgradeable to 64GiB RAM): $3000
4TB SSD: $1300
64 GiB RAM: $400
Click to expand...
Let's see... Six pound. 170 Watt power supply - so how long is the battery going to last (they don't mention it)? They don't mention external monitors? It's a desktop in a flat case. Compare it to an iMac if you want. I asked about a _better_ laptop.
 
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shiseiryu1 said:
Trackpads on Windows laptops truly are terrible. I even have a $1500+ windows laptop for work and it's trackpad feels like crap compared to my Mac. Don't know how useful the touchbar will be; will have to play with it to see. Overall seems neat though.
Click to expand...

Laptops with Microsoft precision touchpads are very good. Your work laptop likely has something else. Tons of PC's have Microsoft precision touchpads now. You just need windows 8 or newer and the touchpad functions are all built into the OS.

touchpad-1.png

touchpad-2-advanced.png
 
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shiseiryu1 said:
Trackpads on Windows laptops truly are terrible. I even have a $1500+ windows laptop for work and it's trackpad feels like crap compared to my Mac. Don't know how useful the touchbar will be; will have to play with it to see. Overall seems neat though.
Click to expand...

The machines with trackpads developed by Microsoft are a lot better - Dell XPS and Microsoft Surface, etc. Still not as good as Apples' but a big improvement over the standard rubbish on most PC laptops.
 
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